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They will need to sooner or later. Linux has more momentum than ever, and saying "players on steam deck/steam machine/bazzite can't play our game" seems like a losing long term strategy.

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It's a balance between allowing linux and (theoretically) opening the door for more cheaters. Saying "players can't play our game because every match has a cheater" is just as bad.

I can't say which has more weight but it's not a cut and dry situation, at least until Linux has anti-cheat.

Right now developers could make an "unattested" queue for linux and other non-TPM windows systems. Which could also serve as a black-hole for cheaters, so maybe there's some value in that.

So, the problem with anticheat on Linux is there's no "safe" reference version of Linux that you can enforce to be running. This is a good thing. It's supposed to be modifiable. This fundamentally conflicts with the goal of anticheat which is to stop you modifying it.

I predict they won't allow all Linux but only the specific version Valve puts on the Steam Deck/Machine, and if you modify it then your games won't run again.

That hasn't stopped Android from offering attestation while they use Linux.

>It's supposed to be modifiable.

https://www.kernel.org/linux.html

I have not seen that as a project goal.

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